Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday October 15, 2010 @02:21PM
from the ideals-inside dept.

sveinungkv writes "The Free Software Foundation has announced criteria for the hardware endorsement program 'Respects Your Freedom.' From the announcement: 'The desire to own a computer or device and have full control over it, to know that you are not being spied on or tracked, to run any software you wish without asking permission, and to share with friends without worrying about Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) — these are the desires of millions of people who care about the future of technology and our society. (...) With our endorsement mark and the strong criteria that back it, we plan to bridge that gap and demonstrate to manufacturers that they stand to gain plenty by making hardware that respects people's freedom instead of curtailing it.' While it currently contains some requirements that many may find broader than what they personally need, the remaining criteria would make the FSF endorsement a useful tool when looking for devices that give the owner control over the device they have bought and paid for. The criteria are still open for feedback."

Even "Linux" is not a single OS. The device might work with Ubuntu, but not with RedHat or Slackware or Mandriva and I don't think that the manufacturer will test all of the more popular distributions. Testing for multiple versions of multiple distributions would be too much, especially since only a few percent of end users use Linux.

Careful there sonny - by failing to refer to it as "GNU/Linux" you are no longer eligible for the endorsement.